With the Johannesburg and Secunda branches hosting their golf days a week apart, the following story has presented itself that got me thinking about how different Jhb people are to the rest of SA... and maybe the world?
It was Wednesday night, around 21h30, my cellphone rings. When my phone rings at this time of night it is almost always bad news, as this call was going to be. Ah - but wait, a glance at my phone reveals that it is my colleague from the Secunda branch, Piet van Rensburg. Alarm bells are off and I am ready for a friendly chat about the SAIMC. After the formalities, how are you, etc, are over, the next question was "what the hell are you guys doing at the JHB branch?" My innocent "why?" did nothing to tame the furious lion,"my whole committee wants to resign, because of you guys in the Jhb branch" was the next line. OK deep breath, who has done what or said what?
"What happened Piet?" was my genuinely worried reply. "You guys are having your golf day one week from ours, we told council in December that we are having our golf day in May and now you lot have booked yours one week before ours, the problem with you guys at the Jhb branch is that you plan nothing, you just decide on something and do it, my committee wants to resign, you guys have two golf days in one year, we only have one and now you are trying to hijack ours, you guys are unfair..etc...etc."
OK, now I have to be quick: "Calm down Piet, we will solve this problem, how many four balls do you need?"
Piet: "30."
"How many do you already have?"
Piet: "24."
I am thinking where is the problem? Okay I made a peace offering and Piet accepted, the offering was an apology from me, we book and pay for one four ball at the Secunda golf day and we give Secunda one free four ball in our golf day, good deal for being put on the spot.
Excellent! Problem solved. A week after this I was speaking to Piet and Piet from the Secunda branch and they were sharing with me how well planned their golf day is and how they have already bought the prizes, how they book the club a year in advance etc. At our next committee meeting I spoke to my colleagues and discussed the above matter. We all agreed that we should take more care next time with our golf dates and again I would like to apologise to the Secunda branch for making our date so close to theirs.
Some time after this incident, funny enough, I was driving back from Secunda and I thought about this whole episode and herewith my thoughts: Piet is 100% correct when he says that we plan nothing, we just do whatever we want. Thanks Piet, I take this as a compliment. Just shows you what special kind of people us Johannesburgers are, who needs planning anyway?
This is why if you want to make money in South Africa, Jhb is the place to be. Here we do not think about stuff and procrastinate about it for months on end, hey good idea = just do it. Jhb is the rat race, no doubt, and only a special kind of person can live here. I love this city and just doing whatever I think is a good idea, don't you? One day when (hopefully) I have made my millions I will go to the coast or some country place to retire where I can think for weeks on end about what to do with my time and when I am going to mow the lawn. Right now there is too much life pumping in my veins for me to be anywhere else... I love this city!
PS - Please join us on 14 June 2006, 18h00 at Rivonia Country Club for our next meeting - speaker not yet determined, will be selected on 13 June.
For more information contact Paulo da Silva, Kubler Africa, 011 794 9215, paulod@kubler.co.za
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